The Crime Branch received a complaint from some people that a representative of a company, GainBitcoin, approached them and asked them to invest their Bitcoins in the company, promising a 180% return in 18 months.
On Saturday, a case was filed against the private firm in Jammu & Kashmir for allegedly duping people of their bitcoins worth lakhs of rupee. The people were asked to invest the cryptocurrency they had in the company, so that they could fraudulently grab their hard earned money, a CBI spokesperson said.
An initial investigation revealed that the complainants, as advised by the firm, opened a digital wallet account and credited the amount asked.
During the course of an enquiry, it came to fore that complainants had purchased bitcoins from ZEBPAY by investing their hard earned money. Thereafter one Manjeet Singh Saho representative of Gainbitcoin induced them to invest their Bitcoins in the said company with the assurance that the company will return 1.8 Bitcoins in lieu of one Bitcoin in a period of 18 months.
There was a condition attached, which said that no withdrawal can take place within the six months period. But the company failed to repay what they had promised, the spokesperson said.
"After the expiry of six months, when the time of withdrawal commenced, the company crashed these wallet accounts and also crashed those websites," the spokesperson said.
The accused have been registered under relevant sections.
The company GainBitcoin was found affiliated and working on the platform of Variabletech Pte. Ltd owned by Amit Bardawaj, Ajay Bardawaj and Mukesh Chandra.
On the internet Bitcoin Giveway Scams are at their peak. Earlier, Google’s official G Suite Twitter handle got hacked asking people to participate in a “Bitcoin Giveaway”. Hackers had also created a flurry of fake accounts impersonating the CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk, asking people to give Bitcoins in order to participate in the “biggest crypto-giveaway”.
